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Minutes, correspondence, annual reports, press releases, financial records, photographs, memorabilia, audiovisual, digital and printed materials document the philanthropic activities and administration of the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The collection is actively growing, primarily through regular document transfers from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Andrew Carnegie's biographical information and personal philanthropic activity can be found in Series VII. In addition, his pre-1911 gifts, most notably his donations for libraries and church organs, can be found on microfilm (Series II), in the Home Trust Company Records (VI.A), and Financial Record Books (I.C.1). Grant files (Series III.A), which comprise the bulk of the collection) provide information on projects and institutions founded, endowed or supported by the Corporation. The Special Initiatives series (Series IV) contains the records of task forces, commissions and councils, formed by the Corporation mostly during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s to address specific issues. The Corporation's records include those of other Carnegie philanthropic organizations (Series VI), including the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Home Trust Company, both of which shared staff, officers, and office space with the Corporation for a period of time.

A collection of letters from authors, critics, and scholars, primarily relating to lectureships and courses given under the auspices of the English Department. Some of the correspondence, notably the ten letters from Amy Lowell, deal with essays written for the revised edition of C.D. Warner's LIBRARY OF THE WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE. The letters are written to Ashley H. Thorndike, John W. Cunliffe, George R. Carpenter, Ernest H. Wright, and Marjorie Nicolson. The correspondents include John Mason Brown, Marchette Chute, Robert P. Tristram Coffin, Padraic Colum, Bernard DeVoto, T.S. Eliot, John Erskine, Robert Frost, Otto Jespersen, Howard Mumford Jones, Joyce Kilmer, Ludwig Lewishon, Amy Lowell, Archibald MacLeish, Thomas Mann, Brander Matthews, H.L. Mencken, Christopher Morley, Ezra Pound, Theodore Roosevelt, Charles P. Snow, Allen Tate, Robert Penn Warren, and Edmund Wilson. Two boxes of miscellaneous uncataloged correspondence cover the years, 1896-1917, and a folder for the 1935 Mark Twain Centennial sponsored by the English Department. The correspondence is chiefly with Ernest Hunter Wright.

The main body of this collection contains letters from Carpenter to Robert W. Herrick (1868-1938), a student of his at Harvard from 1888 to 1890, and later a colleague on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology faculty, 1890-1893. At this time Herrick went to teach at the University of Chicago and Carpenter came to Columbia. Much of this correspondence is concerned with helping his friend Herrick break into the professional writers' world. Items of personal interest are also discussed in these letters to a long-time friend. Three early letters, 1886-1888, are written to his mother from Paris and Berlin where he spent the two years of the Rogers Fellowship upon his graduation from Harvard in 1886. More descriptive than personal, they tell his impressions of these countries and news items of the day. In addition there is an 11-page manuscript by Carpenter entitled "My Impressions of France" written ca. 1888. There is also a scrapbook of clippings from newspapers and magazines of writings by Carpenter from 1892 to 1905. Included are book reviews, literary writings and some items relating to Columbia University.

Papers dealing with Robinson's activities as a student and instructor in English at Columbia University, editor of CONTEMPORARY VERSE, senior editor at THE READER'S DIGEST, poet and author of many books including THE CARDINAL. Among the correspondents are Melville Cane, Paul de Kruif, John Erskine, Merrill Moore, and Christopher Morley.

Correspondence relating to Erskine's various educational, musical and literary interests; manuscripts of his writings; lecture notes for college courses; souvenirs of his army service in World War I and his Columbia University professorship, and student papers from his own school and college days. Also, biographical file, scrapbooks, and articles.

Ginsberg's papers are mostly the manuscripts and clippings of his poetry and prose writings, class notes for his courses at Rutgers, clippings of interviews and other publicity materials for his joint poetry readings with Allen Ginsberg, and many books from his library. Also included are ten letters from Ginsberg to Louis Untermeyer regarding Ginsberg's poetry; and four letters from Gisnberg to Stanley Wertheim.

Correspondence, manuscripts, notes, course related materials, photographs, photostats, and printed materials of Rusk. Included are two small files of correspondence, approximately 100 items, relating to Rusk's editing of THE LETTERS OF RALPH WALDO EMERSON (1939) and to his study of occasional poetry in Colonial America for the Colonial Project in American Literature. The manuscripts include several miscellaneous items by Rusk, and five Columbia University masters essays submitted to him in connection with the Colonial American poetry study. Also, 12,000 note cards relating to this study as well as 150 photostatic copies of books of Colonial American poetry. For the Emerson edition there are 14,000 note cards on Emerson's life and letters. There are also 1,000 note cards for Rusk's edition of THE LETTERS OF EMMA LAZARUS (1939). The Columbia course related materials consist of notes, syllabi, reading lists, bibliographies, examination questions, lists of students and a few letters from them for Rusk's American literature course, 1931-1951. The printed materials are mainly reprints of articles on R.W. Emerson, inscribed to Rusk and containing annotations by him. In addition there are 23 photographs taken by Rusk in 1913, of a Passion Play which was performed in the Philippines.

Manuscripts and correspondence of Weaver, including the typescripts of BLACK VALLEY and HERMAN MELVILLE: MARINER AND MYSTIC, as well as notes and correspondence relating to these works.